A 43-year-old conman who duped parents of several job aspirants of their hard earned money in lieu of securing jobs in Indian Railways and other government agencies has been arrested by the Delhi Police crime branch, police said on Sunday.

The impostor, Praveen Kumar Singh, who claimed to be a member of Lok Sabha, also duped proprietors of several private companies with the allurement of earning them lucrative business contracts through different ministries. A reward of R50,000 was announced on his arrest.(Handout)

A 43-year-old conman who duped parents of several job aspirants of their hard earned money in lieu of securing jobs in Indian Railways and other government agencies has been arrested by the Delhi Police crime branch, police said on Sunday.

The impostor, Praveen Kumar Singh, who claimed to be a member of Lok Sabha, also duped proprietors of several private companies with the allurement of earning them lucrative business contracts through different ministries. He also lured many local political leaders to secure plum political posts, said police. A reward of R50,000 was announced on his arrest.

Singh allegedly runs an organised cheating syndicate in which he has included his wife and some government employees working, said a senior investigating officer. The police are now looking for Singh’s wife and as many as 10 members of his gang, including one Rajkumar, a commercial clerk posted at Mughal Sarai railway station.

Apart from cheating gullible job aspirants, Singh has duped a businessman in Punjab of around R2 crore on the pretext of securing him allotment of a petrol pump. A local Congress leader and an RSS worker are among his victims who were duped on the fake promise of helping them get desirable political postings, the officer said.

“We are yet to receive complaints from the Punjab’s businessman and the politicians who were cheated by Singh,” said the officer.

Ravindra Yadav, joint commissioner of police (crime), said Singh was arrested on May 28 by a team led by inspector Ashish Kumar Dubey from outside Delhi’s domestic airport where he was scheduled to board a flight to Kolkata. His arrest came after investigation into a cheating case filed against him with the crime branch in 2014 in which he had cheated 10 job aspirants of `25 lakh for jobs in railways.